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Maddie Woodruff
English 212
Project 2: Big Data
March 9, 2014
Emotional Response
In today’s world, when a person feels down or ill, they go to a doctor to talk about the
problem they are facing in hope to find a solution to this problem. So say you walk into the
doctor with a headache, irritability, no desire to get out of bed, and you feel very weak.
Absolutely no motivation to wake up and go about the day. Now when your doctor hears this, he
or she could have a number of ideas for what the problem could be, such as a cold or maybe you
have signs of depression. Say it is depression, now depression is not only an illness, but it is also
an emotional response from your body telling you something is wrong. Even with all of the
above symptoms, another sign of depression is also sadness. Sadness is an emotion that every
person feels, but sadness in a person with depression is magnified and can sometimes be
dangerous. With this essay’s purpose to show different uses of ‘Big Data’ in the changing world,
one may ask why the above topic is relevant. For this project, I wanted to find out how ‘Big
Data’ is used in the health industry when it comes to a person’s emotions and possible treatments
to mood disorders. And so in this essay, I will explain with different examples how big data has
been used when it comes to mood disorders and how it is changing in the health industry.
Right away when one is trying to figure out his or her emotions and where in their bodies
they are feeling these emotions, they are often sent to a doctor, or a therapist where they can
discuss the problem(s) and try to create possible resolutions to the problem(s). Look back to what
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was previously stated now about whom it is that tries to help figure out a person’s emotions;
doctors and therapists. It is rarely seen where a person can go to a family member with a problem
and that family is able to say “yes, you are feeling anger and it started in your toes.” Since that
family member may not have had any schooling or training in the medical field, they do not truly
or accurately know what they are stating, even more so have any chance of being right on their
statement. So when it comes down to an accurate ‘diagnosis’, a doctor or therapist is a superior
choice towards solving the problem. But could the average person in fact be right at where in
their body they feel an emotion? And this is when the topic of big data comes in and can begin to
answer this question. There is an article published on npr.org by Michaeleen Doucleff titled
“Mapping Emotions on the Body: Love Makes Us Warm All Over”, that talks about a study
being done by a team of scientists in Finland where they ask average people to map out where
they feel emotions in their bodies. This study is a perfect case study to try and answer the
question of whether or not the average person could in reality pin point where in their bodies
they are feeling each emotion. The scientists in Finland doing this study found the results even
across different cultures to be “surprisingly consistent.” Lauri Nummenmaa, a psychologist at
Aalto University who led the study would say, “Our emotional system in the brain sends signals
to the body so we can deal with our situation.” For example, a young woman has begun to fall in
love with a young man and she believes she feels butterflies in her stomach, and that feeling
makes her smile or blush. Or a person sees a snake slithering through the grass, and at first they
are so terrified they freeze until fight or flight kicks in and they run away. These facial
expressions or physical reactions are his or her body reacting to what is going on inside their
bodies through their emotions. The scientists were so surprised and impacted by the results of the
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consistency in the study, that they are hoping to one day use these body emoticons to help
psychologists find a way to treat and diagnose mood disorders.
If this test was used in the future to diagnose and treat mood disorders, how would that
change how these disorders are treated now? According to an article written by HealthGrades
editorial staff, mood disorders can happen to anyone at any age, from a child to an elderly
person, and each person can show different symptoms depending on their illness. Since mood
disorders can occur at any age, there are several methods of treatments depending on the age of
the patient, and the severity of the illness. HealthGrades warns people facing or if you know of
someone facing a disorder, should seek medical help to get more immediate help. Once medical
attention has been received, some ways that mood disorders are being treated now are methods
such as medication, group therapy, hospitalization, support groups, but also plenty of exercise
and getting enough sleep.
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When comparing HealthGrades information of how mood disorders are treated now, and
the test being done by scientists in Finland, it can be argued that although the scientists of
Finland could have a great idea, they do not actually mention how their tests could effectively
treat mood disorders after locating the problem. HealthGrades already has been able to locate
and treat these illnesses, so for the time being, HealthGrades is still a superior method in dealing
with mood disorders, but big data’s work with the testing in Finland is bringing positive results
and could later in time be a great medical advancement.
Next when trying to find what other things have been done trying to recognize emotions
in people, I found a YouTube video by a group called Eyeris that created a type of software on
the computer that records and recognizes your emotion while using the program. The creators
would show a short video and have a person watch it naturally and the program would record
their emotional responses based on their expressions. If the health industry decided to use this
program, it could bring major advancements by possibly making it easier to find out how a
patient is truly by showing them a simple video on a screen. Big data has been used with this
software by the creator’s constantly recording different user’s emotions and placing them onto a
graph showing age, gender and emotional responses.
Dr. John Ayers, a computational epidemiologist and his team have also been using big
data to research patterns in mental health and mood disorders. Their approach has been different
than the above researchers testing. Dr. Ayer’s and his team have not been necessarily been
treating mood disorders yet, but in order to learn more about the disorders and how prominent
they are in the United States and Australia from 2006-2010 by monitoring Google searches on
mental illnesses such as bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, -OCD and also suicide. By monitoring
how often these term words were Google’d, the team of experts has been able to graph and find
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major patterns between mental illness during the summer and winter. “We found eating disorder
searches were down 37 percent in summer versus winter in the U.S., and 42 percent in Australia.
Schizophrenia searches decreased 37 percent during U.S. summers and by 36 percent in
Australia. Bipolar searches were down 16 percent during U.S. summers and 17 percent during
Australian summers” (Ayers). Big Data has allowed Ayer’s and his team to collect enough
research to find the pattern between mental illness and seasonal changes through Google, and by
doing so, hopefully they will next be able to use this research to make a change and help these
people receive the help they need.
When it comes to mood disorders, it is a very complex situation and even more difficult
to try and understand let alone find the best possible treatment for a patient. But with the help of
big data allowing doctors and physicians to gain more insight and research from actual patients,
the health industry is beginning to change and hopefully in the near future, there will be more
advanced and accurate ways to diagnose and treat mood disorders.
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Work Cited
Ayers, Dr. John. "Big data mining and new hypotheses in mental health research." EpiAnalysis .
Ed. Sanjay Basu, MD, PhD. N.p., 23 Apr. 2013. Web. 12 Mar. 2014.
<http://epianalysis.wordpress.com/2013/04/23/dataminementalhealth/>.
Doucleff, Michaeleen. "Mapping Emotions On The Body: Love Makes US Warm All Over."
Health News From NPR. NPR, 30 Dec. 2013. Web. 11 Mar. 2014.
<http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/12/30/258313116/mapping-emotions-on-thebody-love-makes-us-warm-all-over>.
EmoVu by Eyerus DEMO. 2013. Eyeris, 2013. Web. 11 Mar. 2014.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grQDusqUybs#t=189>.
"Mood Disorders." HealthGrades. Ed. Cynthia Haines, MD. HealthGrades, 7 Aug. 2013.Web.11
Mar. 2014. <http://www.healthgrades.com/procedures/mood-disorders>.